Spying with Maps: Surveillance Technologies and the Future of Privacy - Hardcover

Monmonier, Mark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226534278 ISBN 13: 9780226534275

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2002

Synopsis

Maps, as we know, help us find our way around. But they're also powerful tools for someone hoping to find you. Widely available in electronic and paper formats, maps offer revealing insights into our movements and activities, even our likes and dislikes. In Spying with Maps, the "mapmatician" Mark Monmonier looks at the increased use of geographic data, satellite imagery, and location tracking across a wide range of fields such as military intelligence, law enforcement, market research, and traffic engineering. Could these diverse forms of geographic monitoring, he asks, lead to grave consequences for society? To assess this very real threat, he explains how geospatial technology works, what it can reveal, who uses it, and to what effect.

Despite our apprehension about surveillance technology, Spying with Maps is not a jeremiad, crammed with dire warnings about eyes in the sky and invasive tracking. Monmonier's approach encompasses both skepticism and the acknowledgment that geospatial technology brings with it unprecedented benefits to governments, institutions, and individuals, especially in an era of asymmetric warfare and bioterrorism. Monmonier frames his explanations of what this new technology is and how it works with the question of whether locational privacy is a fundamental right. Does the right to be left alone include not letting Big Brother (or a legion of Little Brothers) know where we are or where we've been? What sacrifices must we make for homeland security and open government?

With his usual wit and clarity, Monmonier offers readers an engaging, even-handed introduction to the dark side of the new technology that surrounds us—from traffic cameras and weather satellites to personal GPS devices and wireless communications.

About this title

About the Author:

Mark Monmonier is Distinguished Professor of Geography at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He is the author of more than twenty books and the editor of volume 6 of the History of Cartography series, published by the University of Chicago Press.

From Booklist:

The author of many excellent books on cartography, Monmonier explores the ramifications of studding the physical and digital landscapes with tracking equipment. Security cameras, ATMs, tollbooth EZ-Passes, and credit-card terminals archive a person's movements and transactions, and some of the data are being cached in "data warehouses" for as-needed snooping. Match this with satellite surveillance and the imminent embedding of GPS technology in cell phones and possibly beneath a person's skin, and Big Brother's technology looks positively primitive. Monmonier explains the trade-offs of each particular data system, noting their specialized applications for agriculture, forest fires, storms, traffic, tax assessment, electoral redistricting, crime control, and more. But he also explains that "geographic information systems" can integrate separate domains of data, to the delight of marketers. We, whose compromised privacy provokes less joy, can at least be glad of Monmonier's incisive account of "dataveillance" and its implications for civil liberties. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0226534278
• ISBN 13: 9780226534275
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 250